I'll start this off by saying that my Aunt's family has the funniest/worst luck.
My cousin went to Mexico over spring break. He came back today and as he was opening his suitcase, a scorpion crawled out. They caught it (before the dog did, luckily) and put it in some sort of temporary housing. Now the question is... what should they do with it? Should they keep it? Does anyone have any experience with keeping scorpions, and can give some tips?

I had a friend in college who had a scorpion named Max, but Max came from a pet store. Max lived in a 10 gallon aquarium on reptile sand with a heat lamp, and ate crickets. I would be a little leery about keeping one from the wild not knowing its toxicity.

What are you going to do? Please don't kill it. They are really cool critters.

1) Try to identify it. Take pics, post them on a site like Arachnoboards or something just so you have an idea what it is. Once you know what it is, you will know more about the potency of the venom in case of a potential sting, you will know how to house it properly(likely not a forest scorp, coming from Mexico), and how to care for it properly. Not all scorpions live in the same conditions. I would initially set it up on a potting soild type substrate with a good hide(clay pot, rock, etc) with a small, shallow water dish. Keep it in a warm place, say 75-85F

2) Do NOT release it. For one thing, it is immoral to release a species non-native to the region(and illegal in the US. Don't know about CA). Another thing is, you are just sending the poor thing to its death. A mexican scorp will have a slim chance of surviving Canada's climate.

3) Set up a nice little enclosure for it. They are nocturnal and like to hide so if you give it a good hide, you will likely never see it out except at night, or unless you flip the hide over looking for him. I have only seen my P. Cavimanus out once. I usually drop a cricket in by her claws so she doesn't have to come out. A hiding scorpion is a happy scorpion.

4) Don't try and handle it. It can't sting you if you don't get your hand near it. They will forever be wild. If you have to handle it, you can try long tweezers to the tail, but I would just shoo it into a cup.

5) Feed it live insects like crickets, mealworms, roaches.

If they can't keep it, contact a local exotic keeper to see if they will take him.

Hehe, I am a spider lover as well.... I have eight tarantulas and only one scorp(right now...).

That's the weird thing...when I worked at a pet store, I was the only one who would clean the rose toe...it didn't bother me too much. But we had this person who had ordered a bird eater...that thing was hyper aggressive, you couldn't open the cage or it was leaping at you. When they came to pick it up, they asked us to get it out of the cage...we told them they were welcome to, but otherwise they had to buy it (it was one of those five dollar plastic carrier thingees). No one wanted to go near the thing.

As far as my cousin's new illegal immigrant, it seems to be doing fine. They've been feeding it crickets. I'm not sure what kind of home they've made for it, I have yet to meet the little guy. But when I do, I'll definitely take some pictures for you! According to my aunt, they do plan on keeping it, which makes me happy since I'm sure any other decision would probably involve it dying. :( I'm very impressed with my aunt for agreeing to keep it, since she has a deathly fear of snakes and spiders...

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